"The sea will grant each man new hope, his sleep brings dreams of home."
Christopher Columbus

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

The Oceans Most Wicked Tragedy: Russian Submarine KURSK

K-141 Kursk was an Oscar II class nuclear cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy, lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on August 12, 2000.

Kursk, full name Атомная подводная лодка "Курск" [АПЛ "Курск"] in Russian, was a Project 949A Антей (Antey, Antaeus but was also known by its NATO reporting name of Oscar II). It was named after the Russian city Kursk, around which the largest tank battle in military history, the Battle of Kursk, took place in 1943. One of the first vessels built after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was commissioned into the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet.

Despite all information to the contrary, this submarine was lost because it was involved in the test firing of a previously TOP SECRET weapon, know in the west as SQWALA. Submarine units of the USN and RN were in close proximity when the test firing took place. As you will see from the video below, US Submarines USS Toledo and USS Memphis have a lot to answer for. In some circles, it has been suggested that the test weapon struck its launch ship KURSK, and although not fatally damaged, the Russian Navy forbade any and all attempts to save her surviving sailors. These men sat in frozen darkness for hours, dying one by one, hour after frozen hour, because of the weapon that I shall reveal here on my site very shortly, in the coming days.

This excellent video describes it detail the events of that dreadful day. For those of you limited in time, begin at minute 23.